Un-setting for election

["Ken Clark" <ken@gesn.com>]

I figured it would be worth 5 minutes to explain to those people not yet trained in GEMS what set for election does.  People who have run GEMS elections before might want to skip this mail. 

 

Set for election puts locks on the user interface to prevent any tampering with the database that can change the contents of memory cards (and now TS floppy disks).  If you un set for election, you need to reprogram your memory cards.  The Poll Book and GEMS software has checks in place to prevent memory cards from being uploaded who's contents could have changed.

 

Gaston created two memory cards and then unset because (as I understand it) they did not have time to enter in the server IP address and phone numbers of the polling place vote centers.  This are only two well-known memory cards with the wrong version, so this should be manageable.  We can create a version of GEMS and the Poll Book that does not perform these checks for them, as a one shot only hack.  This special Poll Book should only be used for the two special memory cards, and the GEMS only for this election.

 

El Paso however has no reason I am aware of to run the hacked release.  Unlike Gaston, all machines in El Paso are early voting, so there is no reason that the database needed to be unset.  If it has been unset, please explain when and why so we can make a determination on how to proceed.  We can of course run the hacked version in El Paso;  however, doing so without even why the election was unset is courting disaster.

 

Ken

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Dogs can't tell its not bacon.